Which school visit will prove more important?

By Jon Ralston

Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010 | 2 a.m.

Barack Obama cannot save Harry Reid.

Only Sharron Angle can save Harry Reid.

With nine days until the most momentous election in Nevada history is decided (don’t say recount!), the president’s words Friday will be less important in the long run than what the candidates, especially Angle, have said — and with these two, may say in the waning days.

Coattails always have been overrated, and if Democrats are not energized to vote against Angle by now, after the most expensive and most intense race the state has ever seen, they never will be. Obama’s ability to motivate the base, which he is trying to do from coast to coast, is less important here than many other states. But his national strategy and Reid’s parochial plan are the same: Make the election less a referendum about him and more about the other side.

If the election is about Reid, he will lose. He has always known that, which is why only a small fraction has been spent on touting his record and his juice. Too many voter ears are deaf to such pitches, believing the majority leader has not done enough for them, has been there too long or has carried tainted water for the president.

Obama’s visit, though, is part of a Reid campaign that has left almost nothing to chance, that has been more relentless than Oscar Goodman in search of the spotlight, and that cannot afford to neglect one vote.

By the time Obama spoke, more than a quarter — and perhaps closer to a third — of all voters who are going to cast ballots have done so. Through Friday, Republicans had a slight turnout advantage, but not yet significant in The Year of the Enthusiasm Gap.

Whatever effect the president had in front of those 9,000 or so folks at Orr Middle School will be minimal compared to what Angle has done herself to gin up Democratic turnout and, perhaps, tamp down GOP fervor.

Her own words and deeds — amplified by Reid’s “Can you believe what she said?” campaign — are the majority leader’s best, perhaps only hope, for insulation from the GOP wave.

Unless you have turned off your television long ago, you know what I mean:

Phase out Social Security and Medicare. Second Amendment remedies. Domestic enemies in the Senate. So many more. And even after everything she has said, especially her insidious claim that Sharia law is infiltrating America, Angle managed to in a few minutes at Rancho High School before a room full of kids two Fridays ago do more than Barack Obama could before thousands of partisans Friday evening.

Think about this, folks, no matter how you feel about either candidate: Angle either actually believes those images in her ads may not be Hispanics, when they clearly are, or she simply lied to the students. Angle either believes the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada and that the northern border is more important, or she tried to put one over on the kids.

In an ordinary year in an ordinary election, those two outrageous statements by themselves (forget that she said some of the Hispanics look Asian) would be enough to disqualify someone from holding any public office, much less entry into the most important legislative body on the planet.

But not this year, not with all those deaf ears. And Reid never makes it easier for his campaign. Something tells me not too many were applauding when Reid said Thursday on MSNBC that he personally saved the world from depression.

Angle may be living in an alternative universe but Reid often seems to be inhabiting one himself. Angleworld, where paranoia, race baiting and conspiracy theories thrive, may be a scarier place than Reidworld, where strange utterances at once seem comic and yet damaging for one of the country’s most powerful men. But neither can be a place voters are enthusiastic about living right now; it’s the lesser of two worlds they are choosing.

In 1986, when Reid first won a seat in the U.S. Senate, the president came to Nevada several times near the end of the campaign. It was a midterm election, and his man was in trouble. But despite all of the president’s efforts, he couldn’t change the outcome.

That president was Ronald Reagan. Reid won despite the Gipper’s efforts.

Obama probably won’t be much more help now to Reid than Reagan was to Reid’s opponent, Jim Santini.

The only person who can save Reid now is Sharron Angle. And his only reason for any optimism is she has tried very, very hard to help him.